Principal RF Test Engineer

Principal RF Test Engineer – Space and Aerospace Projects
Location: Austin, TX
Package: $140,000 – $180,000 + Benefits + Package

We are partnering with a pioneering company in out-of-the-box communication systems for satellites, UAVs, launch vehicles, and other space and airborne platforms. This company takes pride in its dynamic and cross-functional work environment, offering opportunities for hands-on, interactive, and autonomous work. They are seeking a Principal RF Test Engineer to join their innovative team.

Your Role:

As a Principal RF Test Engineer, you will be responsible for the design, analysis, and implementation of engineering test plans and procedures. You will work closely with multi-disciplinary teams to address company-wide hardware test needs, with a strong focus on RF measurements, test equipment, test architectures, and automation.

Responsibilities:

– Collaborate with design and test engineering teams to develop test requirements.
– Map requirements to reusable test architectures and procedures.
– Implement test plans and procedures, logging and presenting results to key stakeholders.
– Manage lab and equipment, guiding key equipment purchase decisions.
– Architect RF test systems and draw insightful conclusions from test results.
– Participate in “design for test” planning and review from the early stages of RF product development.
– Present engineering design review materials to customers and executive team.
– Participate in proposal-writing efforts.

Required Qualifications:

– Bachelor of Science (BS) or higher degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering from an accredited university or institution.
– Minimum of 9 years of industry or university research experience in design, analysis, and implementation of RF test systems.
– High proficiency with RF measurements (Linearity, NSD, EVM, etc.).
– Experience in test architecture design and development, including scripting, test executives, hardware, and measurement abstraction layers.
– Proficient in performing conducted RF measurements including S-parameters, AM/PM, compression, noise figure, harmonics/spurious emission, phase noise, switching speed, bit error rate, adjacent channel power, and group delay.
– Hands-on experience with lab instruments such as digital oscilloscopes, multimeters, electronic loads, source measurement units, RF signal generators, spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, and vector signal analyzers.
– Excellent written and verbal communication skills.